


Elegy

by deadlybride



Series: the Full House of Wincest [6]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: First Time, M/M, Post-Episode: s02e02 Everybody Loves a Clown, Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-12-26 07:34:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18278696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadlybride/pseuds/deadlybride
Summary: After their dad dies, Sam feels the need to get a secret off his chest.





	Elegy

Bobby had to order a new trunk lid for the Impala. There’s a guy in Kentucky who has the same model, says he can get it up to Sioux Falls in a week. Sam’s sitting on the couch among the dust and books, a compendium of demon-lore spread out on his lap, and he watches Bobby say it easy and calm to Dean and then say, just as easy, “I’m heading out, got a guy who’s going to sell me a Remington and a couple pounds of silver for cheap, be back tomorrow, don’t burn the damn place down while I’m gone—” and then Bobby’s gone, leaving them to the sour air in this place, the sullen heat, the way that Sam watched Dean destroy the trunk from twenty yards away and didn’t, couldn’t, say a thing.

Dad's been gone—dead. Two weeks. Every morning Sam has to wake up and reconcile himself to a world where that's true. Bobby's being kind, letting them stay, when Dean's nonverbal most days, and awful and bitter when he can get a word out, and Sam's just—he doesn't even know. He doesn't know what to do with a life where Dad's not out there, somewhere. Stupid. It's not like he was ever reliable, or a shoulder Sam could lean on, or advice Sam could turn to when he didn't know what to do. Even before the big disappearing act, Dad wasn't exactly an example for parent of the year. Far fucking from it, in fact, and the ways that wasn't true still give Sam nightmares some nights. But he was—a fixture of the universe. John Winchester, hunter. The man who had an answer for everything, who scared away those things that went bump in the night. The man that was a bump in the night, himself. Most days Sam had wanted to punch him in the mouth more than he'd wanted to hug him, but to have him suddenly, terribly, just—gone. That wasn't—it was like something normal people went through. Like being t-boned by a semi. A call on the phone and the whole world changes. That wasn't supposed to happen to his dad, of all people.

Dean isn't handling it well. No surprise there. It's worse, though, than Bobby knows. At least, Sam hopes Bobby doesn't know. There's a sickness, under Sam's breastbone. Dad, gone, after he wasn't hurt too bad. Walking around under his own power, just a sling and a bruise and a heavy something behind his eyes, in his face, something that made Sam want to launch across the room and physically fight him, sling or no. Dad always acted like there was some dark secret he knew, some special knowledge that he was privy to and guided his actions, and no one could share that knowing with him—certainly not his sons, who'd sacrificed so much for him to know it. Sam had lost a lot, but Dean—

No, Dean isn't handling it well. Bobby's gone and Dean's still taking the floor, sleeping hard and troubled a few feet away from Sam, on the couch. Sam curls over the pillow, his hand tight on the cushion, and on the thin blanket bed he's made for himself Dean has nightmares, shivering through the pre-dawn hours. Sam watches and feels that same sickness. He wants to reach out but he's not sure Dean won't punch him for it. His bruises are healing, more or less, but there's still that cut over Dean's forehead, the way his face went alarmingly white. The way his mouth parted over a denial that was never voiced. The way that, as they worked on Dad's body, his hand curled so hard over Sam's forearm that it felt like the bruise went all the way down to the bone.

In the morning, Dean goes out and works on the car. Sam sits with his heavy book of lore, at Bobby's desk with a beer at his hand. Elbows on the desk, hands in his hair. He rubs at his scalp, trying to break the headache that's been sitting just under his skull for—well, two weeks. He's starting to wonder if it'll ever ease. The demon, it got to Dad. Somehow. Whether it was in a nurse or a doctor or carried right back into Dad himself, and stole the Colt, and then, somehow, left Sam alone, left Dean alone—like some kind of… taunt. Look what I can take away, it seemed to be saying. Look what I can do without even making an effort. Look: the world, cut in half. A day that will never, ever come to an end.

Hours pass. The house sits heavy, silent, its presence and history sitting solid in Sam's chest. He used to spend a lot of time here, when he was little. Times that he'd be left behind, and Dad and Dean would go off together, alone. He looks at the book, doesn't see the text. So many times Sam wondered, wished, without understanding. Then, once he did—it wasn't enough. Whatever he'd thought he knew, it was too little, and far, far too late.

Dean's out working on the car, again. Something's broken. So much is. The sun's baking down, outside, and it's not thirty seconds before sweat's springing up at Sam's hairline, in his pits, in the center of his back and staining his t-shirt to black. The Impala's out a ways from the house, in an open spot between the carcasses of the other cars. Room for Dean to work on it, and room too to get him away from the house, from any prying eyes. Not far enough to keep Sam from him.

He's leaned into the engine, wrenching away at something, when Sam comes around the stack of rusty-rotten SUVs. Sweat-soaked, too, his grey t-shirt sodden with the sun baking down. It's a horrible summer, humid enough to steam the skin right off Sam's bones. He makes sure to scuff his sneakers loud in the dirt when he arrives and he can see Dean's back twitch, the sound of whatever tool he's using stopping for a telling second, but then he keeps going, and Sam sits down on a stack of two elderly tires and settles in. He can be patient. They don't have, right now, anything but time.

Good thing, too. Almost half an hour, grudging work going on without pause, before Dean stands up straight with a groan and glares down at the engine and doesn't turn, but says instead: "Okay, _what_."

"Nothing," Sam says.

Not honest, and Dean knows it. He slides a hot look Sam's way, but doesn't respond—he just cracks his neck, rolls his shoulders. Leans back into the engine.

"What are you working on?" Sam says, and Dean knows he's just saying it to say it because he fires back, immediately, "Do you really want to know?" and of course they both know the answer to that. Sam bites his lip. He listens to the ratcheting of whatever bolts or screws or _whatever_ Dean's tightening. How many times, listening to this. With Dad, too. Sam would read, on the curb or sitting bored in the backseat, and Dad and Dean would be tucked together under the hood, mysteries Sam wasn't privy to passing between and under their hands.

He looks at the dust between his sneakers, the world blurring. Blinks away the heat behind his eyes, the tight unhappiness that swells up, every minute. He had so much resentment, before. It filled everything he did, every thought he had. Dad was the enemy, was nothing but wrong, and when he'd run away he was running toward freedom, sure, but just as much he was running from a horror left behind. Dean never got that, not really. Dean never seemed to understand what was the matter.

"Say it," Dean says. Sam knuckles at his eyes and sits up straight. In the shadow under the ruined hood Dean's shoulders are popped high, the shape of them carved clear through the sweat-soaked cotton. "If you're going to say it, say it."

They've already fought. Sam doesn't want to make it worse. "I don't want to say anything," he gets out, and that at least is true. Maybe Dean hears it—he slides his eyes Sam's way, past the pressed-out line of his bicep. Sam shrugs, folds his arms over his knees. "Just want to be here."

"I don't need babysitting," Dean says, and Sam says, immediately, "Never said you did," but Dean stands up, one hand on the open hood and the other fisted against his thigh. "Got a crappy way of showing it."

Dean's looking right at him, at least. No more pretense. Sam unclenches his jaw, deliberately, takes a long breath. God, he's nervous, and rightly so. If Dean decides that the car's had enough damage and takes a swing at Sam next—well, it won't be a surprise, and maybe even deserved.

"When you—" Sam starts, and has to stop because his voice comes out like he's about to burst into tears. Dean's expression changes, just like that. Sam shakes his head, stays sitting. He had this idea, like he knew what he needed to say, but with Dean standing sweaty and hurt in front of him any possible way to broach it just flies right out of his head. It's too big, too much.

A high thin cloud passes in front of the sun and the unbearable humid heat lessens, if only minutely. Dean glances up, squinting, then comes around and leans his ass against the car's flank, folding his arms over his chest. Waiting, patient. Like Dean almost never—but then, Sam thinks, biting his lips between his teeth, that's not true. Dean's patient when he needs to be.

"When we were kids," Sam says. "When I was a kid, I mean. I always thought there was some—club, somehow, that I wasn't invited to. Even when I found out, about the hunting, about the—the monsters, and everything. You finally started talking to me like I was a person, at least every once in a while, but there was… so much. Just, so much I didn't know. I wish I could've."

Dean's frowning. "Could've known what?"

Sam unwraps his arms from his knees, overheated. The shadowed sunlight's dimming Dean down to grey, his eyes dark and hard to read. "Everything?" he tries, and he huffs when Dean tips his head. "The stuff you went through to make sure everything was okay. I don't think I got it. Even when I was older, at college, I didn't think about it—I tried not to think about it—and I think sometimes I blamed you as much as I blamed Dad, when it was never…"

Makes him sick even now, to think about it that way. As though Dean could ever be complicit, as though he had any kind of choice. But did he? Sam doesn't know. Dean's frowning still, shifting against the car, his boots bracing in the silty dirt. "It wasn't that bad," he says.

Automatic defense, even when Dad's dead. Sam tips his chin down, takes a breath that feels like glass shards down to his gut, stands up. "You always say that," he says. He takes a few steps closer, his eyes pinned to the ground, and he knows Dean's watching him but he doesn't right now have the courage to meet it. "I just—I know. Now, I mean. I know, and I wish I could've—could've helped, somehow. That I'd taken you with me, or that I'd…"

Shift and scuff in the dirt—Dean's standing up, straight. "What are you talking about, Sammy," he says, but it's flat, not really a question.

Sam swallows. Looks up. Dean's jaw gleams with sweat, a hard sharp line, his eyes flat like Sam's someone to be defended against. The cloud passes away from the sun and light pours across them both again, glinting off the few parts of the car that still gleam, and Sam braces his back foot, holds his hands loose at his sides.

"I know," he says. "About Dad and you."

Dean blinks, pauses a second too long. "You don't know dick."

Sam licks his lips. "Bad choice of words?" he tries, as though there could ever be a way to keep this light, and Dean's expression flickers and then he swings, telegraphing from about a million miles away but Sam just closes his eyes and takes it—ah, knuckles crashing right to the jaw, _fuck_ , immediate thud-thump of pain. Dean seizes his t-shirt and Sam grabs his forearm, still reeling. He thinks for a second through the rippling hurt that Dean's really gonna beat the shit out of him and he doesn't know if he can fight back—if he wants to—but then Dean shoves at him, shoves him away, and Sam stumbles back with his hand clapped to his already throbbing jaw and Dean's stalking off into the mess and towers of car corpses, like there's anywhere to go, like walking away will get him away from—

"Dean," Sam says, pointlessly, starting after him.

"Shut up, Sam," Dean says back, and Sam catches up to him next to an old Taurus and grabs his shoulder, and Dean turns around immediately and shoves Sam away, two hands to the chest, but Sam's ready for it now and it barely budges him. "Okay? Shut up!"

Sam holds his hands up and Dean almost snarls, flexes his jaw, looks down and away, shaking his head. "You don't know what you're talking about," Dean says.

Like Sam's complaining about Dad being gone for another birthday, like they're talking about moving schools and how that's not fair. "I do," Sam says. God, his face hurts. Dean's shoulders are hunched up, defensive. "I saw. When I was—when I was fourteen. Eighth grade, in Akron."

Dean's eyes close, shuddering shut. Sam didn't understand, at first. What he was seeing. He'd seen porno mags, Playboys and Hustlers, and sometimes they had a sketchy cable connection that Dean would mess with and there'd be softcore humping on the TV, blurry lines wavering over the action, and he knew what that looked like. He'd been on a sleepover with his best friend from soccer—Jake Cooper. Sam still remembers the kid's name. He remembers a lot, too much. He'd come home real early because the Coopers were going to church and he wasn't sure what he thought about church then, so he'd walked home, and found the Impala parked in front of the house. They were supposed to be back the next day—hunts never ended early—and Sam had only kind of asked permission for the sleepover, and he froze before deciding, okay, climb in the bedroom window, sneak in that way. He remembers still, levering up the windows on the joints they'd greased when they moved in, and how he barely even breathed, careful not to touch anything, getting one foot onto the carpet and the other, and then he'd heard the noises from the front room.

"I thought it was—" Sam shakes his head. Dean won't look at him. "I don't know what I thought. That he was—hurting you. I guess he—was he?"

"Shut _up_ ," Dean says, but his voice cracks on it.

Sam reaches out, touches Dean's arm—and Dean shoves him, eyes opening and almost black, shoves him again so Sam has to take a step back, and he's breathing hard, his cheeks flushed up high, squaring up like it's for a fight. "Dean," Sam says, and Dean throws another punch but this one Sam catches, he moves with it and then they're grappling, for real, but Dean's control is shot. He pushes at Sam's shoulder and Sam follows through, steps backwards and with him and Dean gets in another punch to Sam's side, right in the ribs, and fuck does it hurt but Sam takes it, swings Dean's weight around by his own center, and when he gets his hands on Dean's biceps he crushes him in, tight against the huge raised side of a dented-in RV, and Dean's head knocks back against the metal and he says _fuck_ and knees at Sam instead, and Sam pushes into him close and tight and says breathless, "Stop, Dean, just—stop, I don't want—" and Dean says, "Fuck off, get off of me," but his voice is thin, his body straining but toward—nothing, nothing. The fight was quick but Sam's breathing hard too. Dean reeks this close, sweat sprung up all over his throat and neck, his hair damp and shining with it when he drops his head, his forehead almost touching Sam's shoulder.

"Dean," Sam says again. Swallows. "I'm sorry." Dean pushes against him and Sam crushes him back, leans his weight into Dean's body, doesn't want to fight—and somehow Dean—shifts, flips them around so Sam's the one with his back to the RV, and Sam's head knocks back against it too—ow—and he raises his hands up, surrender. Dean fists into his t-shirt, his eyes wet, snapping-furious. "I'm sorry."

"Stop fuckin' saying that," Dean says, a rasp. Sam shakes his head, his eyes filling up with tears again. Just keeps happening. "No one was—it wasn't—Dad didn't _hurt_ me, okay, don't talk about shit you don't know about."

"I saw," Sam says, shoving past the lump in his throat. Dean bent over the kitchen table, Dad at his back. He'll never forget, but. "Not just that time."

"You looking to get your face rearranged?" Dean says, not joking, and Sam shrugs, miserable, doesn't lift his hands to defend himself. "Damn it," Dean hisses, "damn it," and he does swing but he just punches—the metal, the RV shuddering under the blow next to Sam's head, and he punches it again and again and Sam grabs his wrist then, drags it in against his chest before he breaks his own damn hand. Already split the skin on the knuckles. He heaves away but Sam pulls him right back in, hands on both wrists now, and Dean—

"Not your fault," Sam says, blinking—sweat, tears, who the hell knows anymore. Dean groans and Sam makes his grip tighter, shakes Dean a little, his shoulders up against the RV, baking hot in the sun. "I'm not trying to—I just, I don't know how bad it was, or if—if it'd be worse, if it _wasn't_ bad, if it was…"

He doesn't know how to finish it. The things he saw. He was old enough to know the facts of what it was, but not what it meant. What did it mean, when he came out of the shower and saw the way Dad's hand lay on the back of Dean's neck—gentle, like he never was with Sam, and how he pulled away when Sam made noise, announced himself. What was it, when he woke up in the middle of the night, and Dean's bed was empty, and behind the door to Dad's room was muffled thumping, the creak of box springs that made the blood rush to Sam's face so fast he felt the prickle of it, tingling, but worse when Dean made that—sound. He should've slammed open the door but he was paralyzed. Paralyzed. Dean always lit up like a sunrise when Dad came home. Sam didn't, couldn't, say anything.

"It shouldn't have been like that," Sam says. Dean slumps. He falls in against Sam, his weight tipping in, their arms crushed between them. Sam dares to let go of one wrist and grips his shoulder, letting his head tip against Dean's. He talks to the top of his ear. "And I'm still sorry. I'm sorry he's gone. How screwed up is that? And I wish I could—I wish there was some way I could make it right."

Dean's hand twists into his collar and his breath puffs against Sam's throat. "Let go of me," he says, very quiet.

Sam shakes his head, and Dean's boots shift in the dirt, knock against Sam's sneakers. He turns his face away and when Sam lifts up he sees the wet tracked down at the corners of Dean's eyes, cutting through the dirt. Cracked, all his fronts fallen away, and Sam wraps his arm around Dean's shoulders, presses their temples together. Dean's breath is loud against his ear. "Sammy," he says, like it's a sentence in itself, and Sam squeezes his wrist, turns his face. His lips brush Dean's cheek and he says, "I wish," and can't say anything more because the wish is just too big. Too much that could be different. Too much that, despite everything, he still wants to stay the same.

A soft, choked sound in Dean's throat, and then his chest heaves on a drawn-in breath. He lifts his face up and his mouth brushes Sam's, off-center, and when Sam freezes Dean hangs there, wets his mouth, and presses in again, tipped up to Sam, gentle. His lips are soft. Brush of stubble, prickling Sam's chin. His eyes are closed and his hand's let go of Sam's shirt, his palm flat now on Sam's chest, his fingers pressing in on top of Sam's collarbone like he's trying to keep him clamped to the earth. Sam can't breathe. Then, he can, and he sucks in air and dips down and kisses Dean. Kisses him, kisses— _Dean_ , his nose pressed into Dean's cheek, his lips against Dean's lips. Their air, mingling when Sam's mouth parts, and he catches Dean's lip between his on the next kiss, both of them chapped-dry, sour, Sam's jaw throbbing with the forming bruise.

They break apart. Hum in Sam's ears—cicadas, bursting forth in the ripe summer, but not just that. He's standing up very straight against the RV, the siding burning through the thin barrier of his t-shirt. Dean's skin is sticky under his hand. He puts his hand on the back of Dean's neck, sweat-slick, his thumb brushing wet hair, velvet burr. He'd put this out of his head. When Dean came back with full red lips, with hickeys, with a swaggering hitch to his step, Sam wondered, and he put it out of his head. He couldn't think about it.

Dean pulls back. An inch, and then more. His face is flushed to the temples, and Sam puts his fingertips to his jaw, his chin. Stubbly drag. Sam's never kissed a man before but, of course, Dean has. His eyelids part, just slits of damp long black eyelashes, and then his eyes, pupils spread out so that the green's almost gone, and he looks right at Sam, not hiding or turning away. Sam has no idea what's on his own face, but Dean's eyelids flicker, and then he drags his hand down to the center of Sam's chest, his weight held there, like he can press through Sam's sternum straight to the hot metal behind.

"That what you wanted?" he says. Sam blinks. Not another punch—quiet, like he's really asking. "Dad's sloppy seconds?"

Sam's stomach flips and he turns his face away. "Jesus. No, I—no."

He lets go of Dean's wrist, has to. Dean slides his freed hand down Sam's side, to his hip, and Sam closes his eyes. A squeeze, familiar, in a way Sam's never—and then Dean pushes back, a full step, and when Sam dares to look Dean's looking right back at him, frowning, and then he turns on his heel and disappears, off into the maze of cars, his boot heels thudding in the dirt until Sam can't hear him anymore.

Alone, Sam breathes open-mouthed, staring at nothing. His lips tingle. His jaw still hurts.

*

Bobby's still gone. He calls, on the house phone, and Sam picks up because what else can he do. _You two haven't blown up the house yet, have you?_ he says, and Sam fakes a laugh, probably badly. _Guy says he has a V-8 he's been trying to get rid of. I'll be another day. I trust you two can make it without supervision?_

That remains to be seen. Sam sits at the kitchen table in the empty house. The sun goes down. He doesn't know where Dean is and doesn't know where to start, to ask.

He drinks a beer, by himself, and then he takes a shower because the clammy-sweat feeling is too vile. In clean clothes he lays out on the couch and stares at the ceiling, and memory won't leave him alone. Dean's mouth. His hand at Sam's waist, heavy and knowing. Before, too. When they were kids. Sam was, anyway; he doesn't know when Dean stopped being one. He puts his hand over his eyes and there behind them is that first time, or the first time Sam saw, the details picking themselves out. Still in most of their clothes, visible through the open slit of the door, around the corner of the hall. Dad was wearing the leather coat, and Dean was down to his t-shirt. Sam remembers his arms, bare in the thin grey morning-light. They were pale, braced against the table, and there was the white flash of his hip, curved against the table edge. Dad's hand wide and dark on it. The clink of their belts, and the rhythm, the slap of skin, the breath pushed out of Dean every time. He'd just turned nineteen, the month before. It was still cold out.

There's a creak of floorboards. A door shuts: the bathroom, the shower rushing on just after, the elderly pipes clanging in the walls. Dean hasn't completely bailed, then. That'd be about what Sam deserves; thank god it's not so.

The shower shuts off, and there's a long couple of minutes there where Sam just breathes alone on the couch, waiting for whatever sentence is coming. Maybe Dean will leave. What if he doesn't?

Opening of the door-latch loud in the silent house, footsteps thudding down the hall. Not trying to be quiet. A pause, and Sam takes his hands off of his face and sits up, because he may have been a coward when it counted but not now. Not if he can help it.

Dean's wearing a t-shirt and boxer-briefs and nothing else. The kitchen light's on and side-lit like he is, Sam can't really see what expression he's wearing. He's looking at Sam, though, that much is certain. His legs, his arms, bare and white, and it drags up those old days and Sam curls his hands in his lap, knuckles grinding tight enough together that it hurts.

It's—not even ten o'clock. Sam hasn't had enough to drink to deal with this. "I'm sorry," he says, after too long of Dean just staring at him, and Dean interrupts immediately: "No," he says, firm and low, and crosses the living room, comes to stand in front of Sam's knees. "No, you don't get to say that."

"You don't make the rules," Sam says, and Dean huffs. Sam tilts his head back and Dean's still just looking at him, steady. Angry or not, Sam can't tell. He always used to be able to tell. Every flicker of expression, every twitch of lip and brow and eyelash, he could read like he had his own personal Dean Winchester Sparknotes. What changed, he thinks, but then—a lot did. He wasn't there for it.

"Can I, um." He swallows. His hands hurt. "I want to ask but I don't want you to punch me again."

Dean smiles. There doesn't look to be much humor to it. "Don't ask," he says, and goes down to the dusty rug, on his knees between Sam's knees, his hands landing on Sam's spread thighs and pressing him down when he flinches. "Okay, Sammy?"

"Uh, _no_ ," Sam says, pushing forward, coiling to stand, but Dean grips his thighs harder and leans forward and catches his mouth again. Sam's lips part, shock, and then—Dean's tongue, soft, and a tiny noise he lets out against Sam's lips, puff of air. He shaved, his chin smooth, his cheek when Sam touches it. His mouth moves against Sam's and Sam drags in breath, holds Dean's jaw, his shoulder. Kisses back. There's nothing to distract, in here. The house is quiet and it's just the wet noises of them, the little groan Dean surprises out of Sam when he bites his lower lip, tugs. Sucks it soft again. Dean pulls back, their noses brushing, and Sam opens his eyes with herculean effort to find himself sitting up close, Dean pulled into the v of his legs, his temple glowing in the yellow light from the kitchen. His own eyes closed.

"What are you doing?" Sam whispers. He feels—unreal. A djinn dream, a hallucination. Some vision of things never to be. Dean's skin under his hands is warm, though, damp and soft from the shower. He smells like Irish Spring. The only soap Bobby has ever bought, a smell from distant childhood Sam had nearly forgotten before they came here again. Dean's wearing one of his oldest t-shirts, the collar practically torn out, a hole in the armpit, washed to velvet softness. Sam drags his fingers down Dean's shoulder, catches the collar, pulls it down a little to see skin. Golden-cream. No hair, no freckles. Untouched—by Sam, at least. Dean wraps his hand around Sam's wrist but doesn't stop him, and Sam abandons the clean skin and drags over to find his nipple, running two fingers over the soft bump of it through the cotton, feeling it harden up under the pressure. He breaks out into a sweat, just like that. "Fuck, Dean."

"You want to?" Dean says, steel under it. Sam freezes and Dean's hand goes tight on his wrist. "That what you want, Sammy? You want to fuck me?"

Images, buried. Old jerk-off fantasies, nameless girls and tits and asses and then the dreams Sam wouldn't acknowledge, bubbling up through them. "I—" Sam starts, and has to swallow. His mouth's too wet. He licks his lips.

Dean's head lifts. In the half-light his eyes are black—like a demon, is Sam's first thought, and his face must do something because Dean frowns at him. "Huh," he says, like he's surprised, or maybe it's just a sarcastic version of surprise, being an ass, because that's kind of been his deal the last little while. Sam knows he's red, the heat of his own face prickling with the sweat. Dean looks back and forth between his eyes. Runs his hand up the side of Sam's thigh, and then inward, his thumb brushing the inside seam of the jeans. Too high. Muscle jumps and Sam bites his lips between his teeth. Dean says, "Ask. What you were going to ask, ask."

A roll of sweat slides down between Sam's shoulderblades, tickling. He opens his mouth and what comes out is: "Did you want it?"

Piece of grit in the back of his mind, for long enough he forgot what it felt like not to wonder. Dean's eyelashes dip, not quite a blink, and he lets go of Sam's wrist. Set loose, Sam's hand settles on Dean's chest. Slides up to his throat, his thumb bracketing the hollow there, Dean's heartbeat steady under the thin barrier of skin. Dean swallows, and then he leans forward and kisses Sam again. Soft, and just once at first, the unbearable plush weight of his lips brushing in almost delicate, his skin so smooth, his nose a brief warm glance against Sam's own. Sam keeps his eyes open even though Dean's just a golden-shadow blur this close. Dean hangs there, for a breath that sighs cool against Sam's lips, and then presses in again, kisses Sam again, and Sam holds his throat and gets his arm around Dean's waist, pulls him in, kisses back. It's—unreal, except for how it isn't.

Dean crawls up on the couch with him, pushes him onto his back. Fingers brushing Sam's jaw, his biceps under the thin barrier of his t-shirt—cupping, holding, at his waist, sliding up to touch his stomach, feeling the half-panicky breath Sam takes. Sam runs his hand over Dean's head, feels the clean-damp short hair—the muscle in his shoulders, in his back. Flat chest, tight small nipples. Shiver, when Sam rubs over the left one, and Dean huffs against his mouth, and that makes Sam rub it again, and that makes Dean smile against his lips, his nose nudging Sam's. Dean likes his nipples played with. That's—Sam squeezes his eyes shut, gets his hands on Dean's hips, tries to feel like the planet isn't somehow tipping off its axis.

Somehow Dean opens up his jeans, gets his hands in. Loose boxers because that's all that was clean and Dean slips his hand in through the slit, warm sweaty shock of grip where Sam's—oh, god, too hard already. "There he is," Dean says, warm throaty almost-approval against Sam's cheek, and Sam clutches at him, lifts up into it. "Yeah, there we go," Dean whispers, and then he shuffles back, curls down, and—

"Oh christ," a burst of breath, Sam fisting into the couch, into the thin blanket, because—oh, wet smooth suction, and his head tips back on his shoulders for a second at the sheer shock of it. His balls lurch, wanting, and he has to physically restrain himself from fucking up into the heat, clenching his thighs so tight he almost gives himself a charley horse. He breathes out, reorients. Dean licks velvety under the head, soft at first and then suckling tight enough that Sam touches his cheek—has to, the hollow under his cheekbone too much, too much. Dean makes a low sound in his chest, pulls off, mouth smacking wetly. Turns his head and Sam thumbs the damp red part of his lips, and Dean sucks in just the very tip of his thumb, running his tongue against the nail. Heat—nothing but heat. Dean curls his fingers into Sam's jeans and tugs, and Sam lifts up his hips and lets Dean pull the whole mess of cloth down, his dick getting caught in his boxers for a painful second, but once it's all down to his ankles Sam kicks them off and Dean kneels in the open spread between his bare legs and curls down and sucks Sam in again, holding Sam's balls against his body and his other hand spread on Sam's leg for balance, and Sam—dazed—holds the side of his head and watches, just watches.

His heel drops to the floor and he braces, holds on. Wet—christ, so perfect, head like Sam hasn't gotten in—but he can't think about that, he can't because this is _Dean_ and Dean's eyelashes are long shadow-smudges against the darker shadows under his eyes, his mouth stretched wide and red against Sam's darker flesh. He pulls up, off, swallows the wet, and Sam holds himself by the base and squeezes, jacks himself slow through the spit Dean's left on him. Lap over the head, over the slit where he's already leaking, and Sam holds himself steady and feels insane as Dean swallows him back down until his lips bump Sam's hand, and works his tongue against the underside. Blowjobs aren't usually enough to get Sam off but this one might do it. He takes his hand away and Dean goes down further, as far as he can before Sam's pressed up against soft wet obstruction and he gags—wet noise in his throat, thick constriction that pulses in Sam's temples—but he swallows and gets past it, breathes around the shaft before he closes his lips and pulls up. Sam finds the sloppy fat of his bottom lip and follows it as it drags plush over the vein, and Dean's eyes open and he looks at Sam with heavy eyes, wet at the lashes, his mouth pursed around the head, his cheeks pink, his ears pinker.

"What are you doing," Sam whispers, again. Dean rubs his thumb over Sam's nuts, tips his head and suckles flat against the nerves under the crown and Sam's balls lurch and his dick flexes and he gushes up a little blop of pre-come just for that. Dean smiles—no, Dean _smirks_ , and—no. No. Sam takes Dean's hand off his thigh, grabs his t-shirt by the shoulder and pulls. A couple more stitches pop but Dean lifts up, comes up, his eyes wide and his mouth open, startled, and Sam kisses him, licks his own tangy taste off of Dean's tongue.

Tug and Dean's shirt comes off, and Sam pulls his own off over his head and gets his hair all in his eyes. Dean snorts and pushes it off his face, but Sam just shakes his head and gets his hands on Dean's briefs, pushes the hem down. Dean blinks, but he helps, and then—underhand, Sam feels, careful, and then there's—there's Dean's dick. It fills his hand, almost-hard. His balls against Sam's thigh, warm, and Sam squeezes the shaft and rubs his thumb over the head, tries not to think too hard about it, not yet, and it's worth it for the—just, surprise. Pure surprise, Dean's face hovering over his in the half-dark, and when Sam lifts up on one elbow for a kiss Dean doesn't respond for a startled second before he groans and sinks into it, sinks into Sam, his weight pushing Sam down into the thin shitty cushions of the ancient couch. A spring twangs somewhere and Dean shifts, somehow, and their dicks push together in a shower-spark of sensation, Sam wet still from Dean's mouth. Sam grips at any skin he can reach, pushes up off the floor into the sheer perfection of that feeling. "Yeah?" Dean says, but not sarcastic now, not smirking, and Sam nods dumbly and Dean moves his hips somehow and oh, goddamn, it's better, and where has this been all Sam's life—and then they're moving like that, Sam lifting into it and Dean grinding down into him, and Sam gets a hand on Dean's jaw and Dean cries out, for some reason, a thin almost high sound, and he ducks his head down against Sam's shoulder and winds his fingers tight into Sam's hair, hips working all the while. God—sparks aren't the half of it, Sam's balls clutching up and he's really leaking now, or maybe Dean is, smeary wet between them and on their bellies, and he presses his mouth against Dean's neck, his shoulder, ass clenching like he's fucking into something soft and wanting and his—and he maybe is—

Dean comes first, groaning like he's hurt, his fingers digging into Sam's shoulder so hard it feels like there'll be a bruise. Another bruise. Sam breathes through it, slides his grip down Dean's back, to the high roundness of his ass, to the curve underneath it, holding tight and keeping him in place while he chases—oh, the space between them slick now, his dick crushing in against Dean's belly, and Dean grunts, his mouth suddenly there against Sam's throat, and he licks and drags his nose up against the sweat under Sam's ear, breathes _Sam_ , wet brush of his lips and Sam crushes up and comes, dick flexing madly against Dean's skin, striping up the already-wet space between their stomachs, their chests. His toes curl painfully against the floor. Fuck.

Kiss against his neck, the tendons relaxing only slowly. His throat, and his shoulder, and he squeezes his grip under Dean's ass and then wraps his arms around Dean's back and ducks down, nudges his nose against Dean's temple until Dean lifts up his head and he can kiss him right. His lungs and heart aren't working, but no matter. That'll sort itself out, or it won't.

Eventually, Dean pulls away from his mouth. He blinks at Sam, flushy-red. Tugs back. "Lemme go."

"No," Sam says.

"I'm not—" Dean shakes his head, worms an arm up against the couch cushion. "I'm not leaving, Octoboy, but if you don't let me clean up we're gonna be cemented together. What'll Bobby say, huh? Finds us like that, your bare ass on his couch?"

Edge of sarcasm again. Sam flinches and Dean rolls his eyes, says, _see_. When he sits up, though, he stays right where he is—drags his knee up between Sam's hip and the couch-back, gets his other foot on the floor, his weight in Sam's lap. He grabs a shirt—Sam's—off the back of the couch, swabs at his stomach, casual over his crotch. Drops the shirt on Sam's dick and Sam grabs it, knows he's flushing—flushing still, worse, he doesn't know. He cleans up too, smears the mess. Doesn't know whose is whose.

On top of him, Dean seems not to care that he's totally naked, open and bare in the light. His dick's mostly soft now, slumped against his thigh, and Sam licks his lips, looking. The curve, the heft of it. He never dared, really. Before.

"I was seventeen," Dean says. Sam jerks his eyes up. "The first time. It was after a job in Decatur. Hot, like now. I'd hooked up with a chick by then, but that wasn't—it was different."

Direct, looking at Sam, though not in the eye—somewhere around his throat, maybe. Sam touches his thigh, holds on when he isn't smacked away.

"You asking, if…" Dean starts, and then trails off. He sucks his bottom lip between his teeth, lets it out slow, the flesh catching soft against the white sharp edge of canine. "That wasn't the point, but I can't explain. Not really. You can't ever get it, 'cause you weren't there, you didn't know, how…"

Absurd, to have that teary heat surge up behind his eyes, with them naked, with Dean in his lap. Happens anyway. Seventeen, that summer—Sam about to turn thirteen and he'd had no idea, none at all. He tries to think back but it's hard, with so much of the present staring him in the face.

"You could try," Sam says. His voice is thick and he clears it. He squeezes Dean's thigh, rubs his thumb along the barely-there hair. "Make me understand. I want to."

Dean huffs, through his nose. When he gets up, the humid air feels cold in all the places their skin was touching.

Water, for both of them. Dean brings back the cup and they pass it between them, Sam sitting up and Dean sitting at his side, their knees touching. Dean drains the cup and leans over to set it out of the way on the floor, and when he sits up again Sam cups his elbow, slides his fingers forward and holds his wrist, his thumb on Dean's palm. Dean looks at him sidelong, but he doesn't pull away, and so that's—that's something. Sam closes his eyes, leans against Dean's shoulder. Dean braces, and lets him.

*

In the morning, Dean goes out and works on the car. A shower, and Sam goes too. Hot already, with what looks like clouds brewing up over to the south. Maybe they'll bring a breeze, ease all the thick hanging air.

Sam sits on a stack of tires, with a cup of coffee he wishes were iced, and watches Dean move. He's different, somehow, to Sam's eye. Should be ridiculous, but it's not. His back, and his wrists. The pinking line at the back of his neck where he's definitely getting a sunburn, and how Sam could hold his hand there, and know the curve of it. "You just enjoying the show?" Dean says, at some point, and Sam jumps and realizes his coffee actually is cold, or at least lukewarm. "Come help me move this."

A new driveshaft, oily and gleaming. Dean wheels himself under the already lifted car and Sam holds the end braced in place while Dean does whatever it is he does, on his knees next to the Impala. He leans his shoulder against its bulk, lets it take his weight. Old reliable, this car, though it needs plenty of TLC to keep it that way.

Dean rolls out, eventually, and steals Sam's coffee. Makes a face. Sam shifts around so he's sitting on the dirt, looking up at him. "What do you want?" he says.

"Lars Ulrich to stop being a douche," Dean says, immediately. Sam waits, and Dean sits down on the tires, the cup of coffee held loose between his knees. He swipes at the sweat on his temple and leaves a streak of grease there instead. "I don't know."

Sam drags his heels up, making runnels in the dirt. "Yeah." Dean squints at him, then looks off toward the clouds, and—yeah, a little breeze has kicked up, welcome and cool. Sam tips his head back against the car, closes his eyes. His hands still feel full of Dean, his weight and the awareness of his skin. He wonders: was this what it was like, for Dad? To have something you shouldn't have, and then to know always after what having it was like—and to have it there, available, all the time. Maybe that was part of why Dad left, left them both. Sam doesn't think he'd have the strength to do the same. Not a second time.

Of course, it's not only him who could do the leaving. "What are you going to do, after?" Sam says. When he opens his eyes Dean's frowning at him. "I mean, if we find the demon, and we kill it. What then?"

Dean puts the mug down, between his boots. Leans his elbows on his knees. "Well, you're going back to college, right? Guess I'll keep hunting."

"Maybe not," Sam says. Dean looks at him. "College, I mean. It wasn't—normal life, it wasn't ever really possible, was it?"

Dean stands up. "Yeah, I guess we screwed that up for you, didn't we," he says, bitter, and Sam scrambles up too, touches his arm, holds it just under the line of his sleeve. Dean glances down at the grip and then looks up at Sam, eyebrows high. "You think you have an open invite now?"

First acknowledgment, all morning. "No," Sam says, because—no. Never that. Rush of breeze and dirt kicks up around their feet. Sam lets go and Dean doesn't move away, despite the skeptical look on his face. "I'm just—I'm trying to say, I don't want the normal life. I want to stay. Here, with you. No matter—no matter what."

"My ass really is that sweet, huh?" Dean says.

Sam doesn't hit him, though he wants to. "Don't," he says, and Dean opens his mouth and then pauses, really looks at Sam, in the eyes. "If we—" Sam swallows. "That's not why. That's never going to be why. I'm not going to ask, or—or expect, or anything. I just want to be here. I want you to want to be here, too."

"Sam," Dean says, like—he's tired, or exasperated, or something.

Sam slips his hand over his wrist, the loosest possible cuff, something Dean could break without even thinking about it. "Maybe it's not enough, but I'm not going to leave. That's all the promise I can make."

It's nowhere close to enough, and he knows it. It's all he has to offer, though. All that's left, the two of them alone except for each other. An empty space, hovering over them.

Dean hooks two fingers into Sam's belt loop. "Like I'd ever be that lucky, to get done with babysitting your giant ass," he says.

Quiet, not exactly soft. Sam smiles, anyway, and ducks his head to try to hide it. Dean huffs, and when he tugs Sam goes with it, steps in closer, and Dean does break Sam's hold to wrap his arm around Sam's back, his chin hooked over Sam's shoulder where it always goes. The breeze is a wind now, pushing against them, and those clouds are closer. Rain, soon.

Sam puts his hand over the back of Dean's neck, hides it from the remaining sun. Dean's thumb brushes his stomach, under his shirt, and he sighs, but it doesn't feel as much like defeat this time. For a minute, at least, it feels like things might be okay. That's as much as Sam can hope for, but even so, he hopes for one minute more. He thinks, maybe, they'll get it.

**Author's Note:**

> for my 'Full House of Wincest' bingo card for the variations on how this could go, this fills the square 'Sam finds out as a teenager'.
> 
>  
> 
> [posted here on my tumblr if you'd like to reblog](http://zmediaoutlet.tumblr.com/post/183796139954/fic-elegy)


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